


How to roast beans and caffeinate people

by Kateyfish (014469)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Barista Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 1, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern Steve Rogers, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sober Tony Stark, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, recovering alcoholic Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 17:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19089418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/014469/pseuds/Kateyfish
Summary: Steve lifted the card reader so that it touched Tony’s card. There was a discreet beep and Steve withdrew the reader. Tony, lost in his phone, left his hand in the air so after staring at it for another long, puzzling moment, Steve took Tony’s wrist in his hand and pushed it back down to his side.That got Tony’s attention. Tony looked up from the phone at his wrist, up at Steve’s hand, then back down at his wrist. When he spoke, it was while looking back down at his phone screen.‘Huh. Don’t usually ask for a massage service with my coffee but if you’re so determined to manhandle me, you could at least make me a coffee before my happy ending?’Steve blushed, both at the intimacy of the comment and the rudeness.‘My coffee itself is a happy ending,’ Steve could not resist the urge to snap back. What was he doing? Was that flirting? Steve shook himself, remembered the horrific way that his first meeting with Stark all those years ago had ended, and stepped away to make the espresso, shaking his head as he stirred the frankly insane amount of sugar into the drink.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contribution to the Iron Man Big Bang 2018/2019 has art by [Starlightark](https://starlightark.tumblr.com/) and words by [Kateyfish](https://kateyfish.tumblr.com/). Art is linked in the notes at the start of Chapter 5.

Steve Rogers first met Tony Stark when he was twenty one and Tony was just about to turn thirty, although in reality, he felt like he’d known the billionaire celebrity all his life. Everyone did, that was just how it went with celebrities, and Tony Stark was nothing if not famous. The son of an old-school American industrialist and inventor, Howard Stark, and an old-money socialite, Maria Carbonell, Tony grew up in the public eye. His parents death in a car crash when Tony was twenty one and his ascension to the rank of CEO of Stark Enterprises made him tabloid fodder as well as business royalty, and it seemed like every other day there was a new story about Tony. He went out on the town every night, a new woman on his arm, then a little later there were the men, sometimes two or three people at once. Stories abounded – he drove an impossibly fast car and had orgies with people of all genders, everything in his house was made of gold, he had robotic servants and employees to do everything from brush his teeth to take out his trash. Tony drank bottles of antique champagne flown in especially from France, he was friends with every World leader and president – and all of their significant others. He wined and dined all of the Victoria’s Secret models on his yacht at the same time, he could spin gold out of iron and pick money off trees. He was unreachable, untouchable, the kind of rich that other people could only dream of, and always the most interesting person in the room. 

There were other, uglier rumours too, that Tony was a freak, sexual appetite never slaked, always with an open bottle of whiskey at his elbow, a fierce temper which drove away all his friends and the majority of his management team, he was out of control and the Stark Industries Board of Directors had banned him from their boardroom after one too many explosive rows. Obadiah Stane, his fathers old business partner, had to step in and save a deal that Tony fucked up after being off his face on cocaine at ten in the morning. People said that there was nothing on earth that Tony Stark could not weaponise, that he could kill people with the touch of his hand, that he had a personal army of sex robots with the faces of major politicians, that he had actually made a deal with the worlds most notorious terrorists so that they only used Stark branded machinery. All in all, so the rumours said, Tony Stark was an ornery asshole with no concept of morality or conscience, too convinced of his own genius to listen to what anyone else wanted. 

Steve Rogers stood in the lobby of the Stark Building in New York with his best friend Bucky Barnes by his side, sweating through his button-down shirt and feeling like he would take off through the roof at the merest hint of a sex robot anywhere near him. 

“Relax, Stevie. Stark don’t bite and eve if he did, I’m sure we could convince him to share.” Bucky smirked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Steve huffed. “You’re not helping, Buck.”

“Steve, Stark’s gonna love us, you’ll see. He’s gonna love us and he’s gonna hire us, we can make his birthday party secure as fuck because we know what we’re doing, and that’s gonna be our big break in this business. Just like we planned.”

“Yeah.” Steve allowed himself to be comforted by Bucky’s sheer confidence, just like always. God knew they needed this to work. Their event security business was still nascent, still run out of Bucky’s mum’s spare room, still built on optimism and tenuous contacts. This contract with Stark could change all that though, extra security for Tony Stark’s thirtieth birthday party would be just the sort of exposure that their business needed. Everything rode on this meeting, and Steve had been awake for most of the previous night, worrying and planning and perfecting the proposal. 

They rode up in a glass elevator with a Ms. Potts, apparently Stark’s PA, who gave them an alarming list of rules to follow when they met Mr. Stark. 

‘No handshakes, no selfies, no gang signs, no handing things over, no offers to get drinks or coffee, no small talk, no alcohol, absolutely no mention of his parents at all whatsoever, and most importantly of all, don’t be boring. Good luck gentlemen, Mr. Stark and Mr. Stane are waiting for you.’

Steve felt like he barely had time to take a breath that he definitely did not choke on, no matter how much Bucky side-eyed him, before they were ushered into the conference room, and Steve craned his head to catch his very first glimpse of… an old man sitting sideways in a comfortable chair and glancing anxiously at his expensive watch. The man rose to shake first Bucky’s hand, then his. 

‘Good morning gentlemen, I am Obadiah Stone. I must apologise for Mr Stark, he is running a little late this morning. You can’t rush genius, that’s a fact, and he is a very busy man what with the company to run and his schedule – oh!’

During Mr Stane’s welcome, which had featured a slightly uncomfortable once-over and a very firm grip, there was a gathering ruckus outside the conference room, growing louder as closer, until the man was interrupted by the bursting open of a side door and the entry of a very disheveled, _very handsome_ Tony Stark. Tony was wearing what looked to be a three-figure suit with a waistcoat underneath, charcoal grey and very well fitted. On his face were tinted yellow eye-glasses and his facial hair was styled into an almost annoyingly perfect goatee. 

‘Don’t start the party without me, boys!’ Tony slurred, raising the glass of amber liquid in his hand in a tipsy salute. Steve stared – this was not the Tony Stark he was expecting. Where was the genius in this drunken disaster currently pouring himself into the plush chair at the head of the conference table? Steve immediately took a dislike to the man. He glanced back at Mr Stane, trying to figure out the appropriate reaction, and for a second he thought he caught a smirk on the older man’s face before it was wiped away by a paternal frown. 

‘Tony! Gentlemen, Mr Tony Stark – Tony, these are uh, Steven and uh, - James, was it?’

‘Call me Bucky.’ Wow, Bucky sure was making a lot of eye contact right now. 

‘I most certainly will, _Bucky._ ’ The way that Tony made his best friend’s name sound in his mouth made Steve shudder a little, caught between horror at the inappropriateness of his tone and wanting to hear Tony say his own name like that. 

Next to Steve, Mr Stane stirred a little, gently frowning at Tony until he sat straighter in his chair and broke off the intense eye contact he and Bucky had going on. Steve relaxed a little – Mr Stane seemed like he had Tony under control. 

‘Well, gentlemen, the floor is yours,’ Stane gestured to the head of the table and with a sickening thud in his stomach, Steve realized it was Go Time. 

With a last glance at Bucky, who wasn’t even blushing, the fucker, Steve moved up to the top of the room and started their presentation. It was simple, clear, innovative… and obviously completely boring. Within thirty seconds of him starting to talk, Tony had pulled something small and metal out of his pocket, produced a screwdriver out of nowhere and begun to tinker. Steve felt the bright red flush of embarrassed anger flooding him as he tried to push through Tony’s rudeness and carry on despite the fact that he was clearly being ignored. Bucky, the godsend that he was, noticed the furious pink blush of Steve’s face and stepped in, smoothly taking over from Steve when he choked on his own words. It made no difference – Tony might have been all smiles and flirty glances before the presentation, but now he looked past Bucky as though he was no longer there. Was this what the super-rich were like? Fake smiles until they tired of you and then nothing but vacant stares and not even the semblance of politeness? Steve, fuming in silence next to a rapidly-flailing Bucky, thought back to all of the ugly rumours that he’d heard about Tony Stark. Now that he had met the man in person, he was inclined to think they were all true, and that Tony was a monster who used people up and threw them away – except he hadn’t even gotten the chance to be useful before being discarded. Story of his life, really – no-one expected skinny, frail Steve Rogers to be of any use to anyone, ever. 

At the other end of the table, Tony used the corner of his expensive suit as a rag to wipe oil off whatever he was tinkering with, and set it down on the table with a loud thunk. The sound startled Bucky out of his speech and Tony, seemingly grateful for the interruption, opened his mouth and started talking in the peculiar dense, rapid-fire staccato of slurred words that Steve was coming to realize was meant to be conversation. 

‘Ok, guys, that’s great and all, loved the presentation and you, tall dark and stacked, those suits are really working for you, you should give me the name of your tailor except if it’s your mum, in which case – yeesh. Trouble is, though, that what you’re selling is distinctly a lemon, a few bricks short of a mansion if you catch my drift which you do because who doesn’t? Anyway, point is – I’m not picking up what you’re putting down, and as a gesture of apology I’d like to invite you both to jump out of my giant, delicious birthday cake at my party where you will definitely not be working, but will in fact be spending the evening in something skimpy, possibly with lace –’

‘Tony that’s enough!’ Obie broke the awful spell of Tony’s words, glaring down the table at Tony, who seemed unperturbed by the interruption. 

‘Oh come on, Obie, what’s the problem? They wanna come to my party, they get to come to my party! Party for all!’ Tony waved his screwdriver around wildly as he spoke, gesturing grandly like a circus ringmaster. 

For one wild moment, Steve thought that Mr Stane was going to jump the table. Although his face didn’t move at all from its laconic grin, something in Stane’s eyes flashed with contempt. Steve turned away, not wanting to be caught having seen what was underneath that mask, and chanced a look at Bucky. Bucky was fairly easy-going when it came to his own feelings, but Steve knew that Bucky’s protective streak ran a mile wide when it came to Steve himself, and that Tony was definitely about to be on the wrong end of one of Bucky’s trademark murder-glares. To save the situation – Stane struggling to remain composed, Bucky two seconds away from exploding and Stark himself seemingly unconcerned – Steve balled his fists, puffed out his chest and did what he did best. He argued. 

‘This is **not** about being at your party, Mr Stark. This is our job, our livelihood, and we are not all made of money. Clearly you are not interested in our business, and that’s fine, but there is no need for you to be so short with us. Now, I don’t know if you’re this rude to everyone who comes into this room, but if you think about it, I’m betting that you’ll come up with an apology. A sincere one. We’ll both be ready to hear it.’

Tony Stark gaped, actually gaped wide-open at him. Over the top of his odd yellow eye-glasses, hazel eyes peered at Steve, suddenly not seeming that hazy at all. 

‘Sanctimonious little thing, aren’t you?’

‘Mr Stark-’

‘No. Don’t you “Mister Stark” me, Junior. The grown-ups are talking now.’ Steve’s eyebrows steamed upwards, taken aback at how suddenly sober Stark sounded. ‘This is my boardroom, in my building, and this is my party we are discussing. I act in my best interests, not that you can say the same, and I have the final judgement call on all matters relating to this company. I will not hire amateurs who can’t even cope with me on a good day – and believe me, today you’re seeing my kind and fluffy side – to work at a private event. How are you going to handle my guests when you can’t even handle a little criticism?’

This was one of those moments where Bucky’s extensive knowledge of Steve’s moods came in handy. Bucky could see, before Steve even moved, that he was going to argue back and possibly get in Stark’s face over this, because if there was one thing that Steve Rogers could not stand, it was jokes about his height. Before Steve could say something stupid that would no doubt get them banned from the building for life, Bucky grabbed his best friend’s arm and hauled him behind his own body, clamping his other hand over Steve’s shoulder to keep him there. 

‘Well it’s clear this isn’t going to work out, Mr Stark, Mr Stane, thank you for your time this morning aaaaaaaand we’ll just be leaving now – Steve, I said we’ll just be _leaving_ … now…’

Really, Bucky thought as he dragged a furious Steve out of the conference room, he deserved a sainthood for putting up with this. 

///////////////////////  
‘You look like shit, Tony, and you treated those boys like shit as well.’

‘They were amateurs,’ Tony replied, brain turning over the way that Steve Rogers had looked when he’d left, ‘wasn’t gonna give ‘em anything anyway.’

Obie crossed to the old-fashioned sideboard that had belonged to Tony’s father. God, but he hated that thing – it still squeaked when it opened even though he had personally and very liberally oiled every single moving part in it. Like that damn cabinet, Howard Stark had always had to make sure everyone heard him whenever he spoke, even in a crowded room. Howard had never shut up either, no matter how oily he got. 

Obie opened the damn cabinet and pulled out the inevitable bottle of whiskey. He poured two glasses and handed one back to Tony, swirling the other one slowly. Obie’s eyes focused in on Tony’s hands as they raised his own glass, mockingly saluted Obie and drained it in one go. Obie took a tiny sip of his own drink in return. 

‘I know you don’t have to pick the first people who walk into your office, but – I’m worried about you. You’re a security risk, Tony, and I want you to have the best protection money can buy.’  
Obie was always worried, Tony thought blearily. Was it possible for thoughts to slur? If so, his thoughts were slurring. 

‘Be easier not to have the party, if it’s that bad.’ Tony looked at the floor as he spoke – he and Obie had been over this before. While Tony wanted to celebrate, and celebrate hard, a large corporate function with all of his business associates and droves of Obie’s network of ‘contacts’ was not what he had in mind. Gorillas stuffed into cheap tuxedos masquerading as a security team was also not what he had in mind, although he couldn’t remember for sure what testing phase his own security bots were in just in that present moment. Damn it, why did Obie have to schedule this meeting so early? He wasn’t awake yet, needed more whiskey before he could function. 

‘Don’t fight me on this, Stark. I’ve got your back as always, and I just think that a smaller, more… mature celebration would be appropriate. You need to keep some good company - for a change.’

Tony scoffed – he was *so* mature, thank you very much. When would Obie learn that telling him not to do something automatically made him want to do it more? Obie had his best interests at heart, obviously, just like he always did, but Tony… well, he was already busy planning the kickass after-party that would no doubt cause Obie to roll his eyes and scowl at the next morning’s headlines. He was just that sort of person, he thought to himself, dangerously wild and dashingly sexy too, the perfect playboy, untouchable by anyone, and why did that make him feel so cold all of a sudden? No, Obie was right, he’d have the boring, “appropriate” celebration and then follow Obie’s advice _to the letter_ and get himself some _great_ company, possibly in the form of a scantily clad, professional and downright _eager_ young somebody. No, several somebodies. It would be awesome! 

Tony stood, downed the rest of Obie’s nearly-untouched whiskey, and threw a sloppy, half-assed salute. 

‘Here’s to good company, old man!’ Tony was totally sashaying right now, he knew he was, he just _had to be_ , and it was a pity that there was nobody here to appreciate how good his ass looked. Maybe he should look into getting a personal booty appreciator? Someone who followed him around and clapped when he sashayed like this? It might be nice, to have someone with him more often – whoa, where did that thought come from? Tony shook his head at his own stupid neediness as he sashayed out of the conference room to find Pepper. 

Left behind, Obie collected the two empty glasses with a smirk and a sigh.  
Tony was so predictable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed me comments!!


	2. Chapter 2

Tony drank Bloody Marys in the morning, French champagne with lunch and whiskey in the boardroom. The board complained. Obie had his back, as always, telling those busybodies to mind their own business and stop complaining because Tony was filling their pockets and putting their kids through school so really, what right did they have to pry into his private life? Obie even relaxed enough to let Tony skip a few board meetings without explanation after he woke up a couple times not knowing what day it was, crashed out after an inventing binge which inevitably turned into a drinking binge. Obie was great like that. By now, Pepper had come to her senses and allowed Tony to take her on a date and that was even better, they were great together and he didn’t know why it had taken them this long to fall into bed. He was the richest, luckiest, most famous man in the world with a party lifestyle that Tony just _knew_ was the envy of every socialite in the west, he was a God among men and nothing bad could happen to him. 

Tony invented a bartender-bot to make him his favorite cocktail whenever he felt like it, and Tony definitely never made mistakes but there must have been some kind of glitch because he kept on finding him unplugged from his charging station. Pepper started to hide his booze, which?? He didn’t like?? They argued. Pepper, face red and arms gesturing wildly, admitted that she’d been unplugging bartender-bot because it was the only way she could stop Tony from drinking margaritas at ten in the morning. Tony vindictively downed margarita after margarita while trying to get through to Pepper on the phone after she stormed out of the Tower. 

They made up. Tony celebrated. He relaxed, drank and partied and three days later he had forty-four messages on his phone from Pepper, the last two of which read: 

Received from: Pepper  
If I don’t hear from you soon, it’s over between us.

And then, inevitably: 

Received from: Pepper  
I can’t do this anymore. Call me.

Tony didn’t call. He paid for the most expensive pair of shoes he could find and had them sent to her house but it wasn’t enough and he didn’t know what else he could do to win her back. 

Tony drank. More and more stories started to appear in the tabloids about him, insidious whispers that fuelled speculation that he was unfit to work. Tony ignored them. Obie knew how hard he was working and that was all that mattered, he could concentrate on inventing and let Obie handle the board, and Pepper handle the press. Between Obie and Pepper, he felt safe enough to loosen the reins a little with his company, and take a trip to the Middle East himself to demonstrate the effectiveness of his new invention, the Jericho missile. 

Tony drank chilled champagne in the crater left by the Jericho’s impressive demonstration. Tony drank single malt whiskey over ice in the Humvee ride back home. His glass was still cold in his hand when the first bomb went off and his world exploded into fire and agony. 

 

The second time Steve Rogers met Tony Stark was eleven years and a lot of heartbreak later. Steve was now thirty two, scraping his money together to afford rent and still living in the one-bedroom flat that he’d lived in as a twenty year old. Bucky was gone, victim of an alpine train crash while he and Steve had been on holiday, and the business that he and Bucky had started together had gone bust. Steve was the first to admit that after Bucky’s death, he never really gave it another chance. He had no living family, very little money, and he worked seven days a week in the mobile coffee trailer that was simultaneously his workplace, storage space for his apartment, and his only means of transport. 

It looked to be a nice day, so Steve took his cart into Manhatten. Early in the morning, he parked in on the corner of a sunny, green park and opened just in time to deal with the morning rush of businessmen, commuters and joggers. There was a sort of quiet grace in making coffee, the steam rising from the milk and the drip of the espresso into the cup a sort of ritual offering, to the same Gods every day. He barely had time to look at the faces of his customers as he worked both the till and espresso machine himself until finally, painfully, the rush died down. 

Just as he was attempting to make himself a coffee, ignoring all of those little things he always needed to do, like clean the espresso filters and change the grind tube and top up the beans and get the coffee smudges off his face and… a man with black-and-grey hair and a truly alarming beard situation approached the trailer, black credit card flashing in one hand and expensive-looking phone in the other. He seemed to be gabbling into his phone about something without paying attention to where he was going, stopping only when he knocked up against Steve’s trailer. 

‘Triple-shot espresso, three sugars please, and make it snappy!’

The man peered over the top of his Tom Ford sunglasses. Steve gaped as he remembered where he’d seen brown-sugar eyes and bad facial hair before. Tony Stark had come to his coffee cart. 

‘One eighty please,’ Steve tried desperately to keep his voice level and not give away that he’d actually recognized, met and hated this arrogant billionaire. Tony Stark stuck his credit card into the air in the vague direction of Steve’s face, his attention completely back on his phone screen. 

‘Come on, old man, I don’t have all day.’

After a moment, Steve lifted the card reader so that it touched Tony’s card. There was a discreet beep and Steve withdrew the reader. Tony, lost in his phone, left his hand in the air so after staring at it for another long, puzzling moment, Steve took Tony’s wrist in his hand and pushed it back down to his side. 

That got Tony’s attention. Tony looked up from the phone at his wrist, up at Steve’s hand, then back down at his wrist. When he spoke, it was while looking back down at his phone screen. 

‘Huh. Don’t usually ask for a massage service with my coffee but if you’re so determined to manhandle me, you could at least make me a coffee before my happy ending?’

Steve blushed, both at the intimacy of the comment and the rudeness. 

‘My coffee itself is a happy ending,’ Steve could not resist the urge to snap back. What was he doing? Was that flirting? Steve shook himself, remembered the horrific way that his first meeting with Stark all those years ago had ended, and stepped away to make the espresso, shaking his head as he stirred the frankly insane amount of sugar into the drink.

‘I’m sure your coffee is excellent, but I’m going to have to deduct points for the attitude of my barista.’ Tony met Steve’s eye for only the second time in their conversation, and Steve was reminded of how intense Tony could be despite the careless attitude he projected. 

‘Y’know, I’ve heard that actions speak louder than sass, so why don’t you drink this delicious coffee and tell me what you think earlier.’

‘Actions speak…? JARVIS, is that even a thing?’

‘No recorded uses of that phrase, sir,’ came a tinny, disembodied British voice from Tony’s phone. Steve stared at it, trying to figure out what had just happened. 

‘There you go, sweetcheeks, I’m right and you’re wrong. Now hand over the goods before I expire from caffeine withdrawal.’

‘Here is your beverage, sir, you have a great day, now.’ Steve put as much sarcasm as he could into that sentence, giving Tony a small scowl as he handed over the small espresso cup. 

Tony Stark just scoffed and walked away. He downed his espresso in one go and stopped. Dead. Steve watched as Tony looked down at the coffee cup in surprise, then turned back to face him. Steve scowled a little more. Stark had his coffee, how many other ways could there be to ruin Steve’s day? 

‘This coffee is actually halfway decent.’

‘I’m flattered.’ Steve deadpanned. 

‘No, really. I’m trying to pay you a compliment here.’ Tony took a step back towards Steve, looking down at his coffee cup and scrunching up his face slightly. Steve tried and failed not to wait on his next words. ‘You may not recognize me-’ – Steve snorted – ‘-but I’m actually the owner of a little business called Stark Industries. How about you move this fine establishment over to Stark Tower some time?’

‘You can’t tell me where to put my own cart. You’re not the boss of me,’ Steve replied, a little uncertain as to where this conversation was going. 

‘No, but I could be. I mean,’ Tony stalled at the look of sheer attitude on Steve’s face, ‘you’d still be Captain Of The Coffee Cart or whatever your official title is, no, I mean that I’ve been looking to upgrade the coffee facilities for my workers. You move this cart, permanently, to the front lobby of Stark Tower, serve me and my employees your delicious goods all day, be at my beck and call, that sort of thing, and I’ll have JARVIS put you on the payroll as a contractor. You’ll get a guaranteed wage, and of course you’ll have access to all the employee benefits. Spa, gym, not that you look like you need it, company pension and all that jazz. Whaddaya say, O Captain? Actually, save the endless gratitude for later, it’s a bit embarrassing. Just blink twice and we’ll call it a deal.’   
Tony turned on a dazzlingly white smile as though this was a done deal. Steve, on the other hand, hesitated. His head was in a whirl, thoughts of being indoors and earning a steady income warring with loss of independence and actually having to work for the guy who had made such a strongly negative first impression on him. 

‘Would I have medical?’ Steve asked, stalling a little so that he could think. He’d needed thousands of dollars in medicine in the past and he wasn’t going to let himself be employed if he couldn’t access insurance. 

‘You doubt me? I’m wounded.’

‘Well I’m not doing it if there’s not medical.’

‘Of course there’s medical, what do you take me for? Dental, too.’

Steve blew out a tight breath. His mama had always warned him about letting his pride get in the way of a good thing. It was a big, big risk, but Tony didn’t seem to remember their first meeting – why would he? – and nobody ever accused Steve Rogers of looking before he leapt, so… He took Stark’s hand and shook it. 

‘We got a deal, Mr. Stark.’

‘Call me Tony, please.’ Tony’s grin widened for a moment, and Steve held out his hand for Tony to shake. He realised he’d made a misstep, however, when Tony stared at the hand, head tilted to one side, and said, 

‘I generally don’t.’

Steve withdrew the hand, regretting every step in his life that had brought him to this moment. He couldn’t help thinking that he was in over his head. Now he had to look at that face – those eyes – every day… but at least now Tony was his boss he’d put a stop to that horrible too-white grin, right? Looking at Stark – Tony’s – smug face as he handed Steve a card and mock-saluted his coffee machine, Steve knew that he was in big trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve’s cart was busier than it had ever been. Stark Industries sure did consume a lot of coffee, and Tony Stark himself might be the leading reason why Steve’s weekly coffee bean order had tripled in the month since he’d been set up in the lobby. He could afford it, though, thanks in no small part to the eye-wateringly large paycheck he’d received at the end of his first week. Stark employees got free coffee if they flashed their employee ID cards, but visitors and the general public still had to pay. Steve had thought that might take a chunk out of his take-home pay, having free coffee for all Stark workers, but to his surprise, and guilty relief, his new paychecks were over twice as much as he was previously earning. If this continued, he might even be able to afford a better apartment and a real car, thoughts which made Steve’s heart beat fast. 

In between the innumerable lattes he poured for the workers as they entered the building on a rainy Tuesday – Steve liked to be there early so he could set up when it was just him and the janitor, Stan – Steve caught the clack of expensive heels on the marble floor and found himself looking up into the sharp face of Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries and arguably the most powerful person in the company. Ms Potts raised a sardonic eyebrow as Steve froze, caught in the middle of pouring out milk. 

‘Uh, good morning Ms Potts, uh, ma’am.’ Why was he stuttering? Oh, just because Ms Potts was the most influential person he’d made coffee for this month and he was suddenly, irrationally terrified. No big deal. 

‘Good morning, Steve. You can call me Pepper, you know. Everyone else does.’

‘Uh, ok. Well, good morning Pepper. Here’s your caramel latte, triple shot, no foam.’ No, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t even her coffee, _what was he doing, why was he like this?_ The woman whose coffee order it actually was narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing. Perhaps she was in awe of Pepper Potts as well. 

Pepper took a sip and sighed in bliss, closing her eyes and letting her shoulders loosen. The expression made her look beautiful, and Steve’s hand twitched, looking for a pencil to sketch her. It was an impulse he was having more and more often these days, as it seemed that Stark only employed beautiful people and it was giving his awkward bisexual heart constant palpitations… or was that due to the five double espressos he was drinking daily to cope with the increased demands for coffee? Impossible to say, Steve reckoned. Pepper thanked Steve and walked away with her coffee, her step looking a little lighter than it had on the way in. Steve was left alone with his blushes for only long enough to re-make the scowling woman’s order and watch her flounce away, before an ominous buzzing filled the air. 

An insect? thought Steve, No – a plague of insects?   
He looked around in confusion but as he turned around, something light and sharp hit him in the side of the head and tangled in his hair. Steve swatted frantically at it, truly terrified for a moment that some kind of gigantic beetle was going to lay eggs in his head. With one final, annoyed buzz, the insect-thing untangled from his hair and hit the counter, hard.

Steve looked at it. It was not an insect. 

It turned out to be a palm-sized drone, its fibre-glass skeleton painted red and gold, fragile helicopter-blades crumpled and spinning uselessly from where Steve had batted at it. Feeling a little foolish, Steve carefully righted the little drone and tried his best to straighten out the bent blades. The drone made a sad little sputtering noise and went dead. It was only then that Steve noticed the design of the drone resembled a mobile cup-holder and that there was a scrawled note taped to its back. 

“Make coffee at once if convenient. If inconvenient, make coffee all the same.”

Steve blinked. He read the note twice more, stared up into space for a moment, then read it again. Yep, that’s what he thought it said. He assumed, from the flashiness of the drone’s design and the sheer audacity of the message, that the coffee was for Tony, but now that he’d broken what was undoubtedly a priceless piece of experimental StarkTech, he had no way to get the coffee to its recipient. Only Stark, thought Steve, would be so arrogant as to send a drone to get coffee. No doubt, he grumbled to himself as he pulled the espresso shot through, Stark thought that he had more important things to do with his time than come get his own coffee. Adding the requisite three heaped spoons of sugar and pressing a lid down onto the cup, Steve wondered what he was supposed to do now. Was he supposed to just go to the front desk and ask for Stark? He wasn’t some damn errand boy, he had more customers to attend to than just one arrogant asshole of a man. A man who pays your very generous wages, thought his traitorous reasonable brain. Damn him. 

Steve sighed, guiltily ignoring the pained buzzing of the drone on the counter next to him. Capping off the little paper cup, Steve tucked the drone under one arm, squared his shoulders and marched up to the front desk. As he approached the dark-haired woman sitting there, his march got less and less determined – Maria Hill was the most fearsome receptionist Steve had ever encountered. Tough, acerbic and rumoured to be able to kill a man with a paperclip, Maria Hill inspired awe and fear in equal measure.

Steve ran out of steam under Maria’s pointed stare, which took in the drone, coffee cup and hang-dog expression without moving a muscle. He pointed at the drone. 

‘Its, uh – not working. I thought I’d better bring Mr Stark my coffee himself. Uh – his coffee myself, I mean.’

Maria pursed her lips at him, and for one awful moment Steve thought she was going to call him out – but then she slid an electronic pass-key marked ‘Staff’ out of her desk and held it out to him. Steve heaved an internal sigh of relief. He had gotten away with it! His relief was short-lived, however, for as the elevator doors started to slide shut after he’d swiped his Staff pass, Maria called loudly across the whole lobby, 

‘Next time, remember that I have access to all the security feeds before you lie to me, Rogers!’

The doors closed on Steve’s horrified face, certain that he would never be able to look Maria in the eye again. He had forgotten two crucial details about Maria – firstly, that she always knew everything, all the time with no exceptions, and secondly, that she loved a dramatic one-liner.   
Damn it!

Steve groaned, allowing himself the drama of throwing himself against the back wall of the elevator and sliding down it. He put his head in his hands- 

‘Are you ill, Captain?’

Steve’s head shot up. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked with a little more fire than he felt. 

‘I am Jarvis. I am Mr Stark’s butler,’ came a voice out of the ceiling. 

‘Uh… hello, Jarvis. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Mr Stark employed a butler.’ Steve glanced upwards towards the ceiling as he spoke, uncertain of whether he was being watched. He had a vague idea of a Downton-Abbey-esque older man in a tail-coat, but other than that, no reference for butler came to mind, and it was certainly odd that such a progressive man as Stark would still employ servants. 

‘I am a virtual butler, Captain. I am an artificial intelligence,’ said the ceiling, as if reading Steve’s uncertainty. 

‘Mr Stark created an AI – what, just so he doesn’t have to open his own front door?’

‘I can open more than seven hundred doors in this building,’ the ceiling replied, sounding, if it was possible for an artificial intelligence to do so, a little miffed, ‘including the doors to this elevator.’

Steve humph-ed out a laugh. ‘Alright alright, I get it. You are a very good butler, now please do not open these doors unless you want Mr Stark to have to lick his coffee off the walls.’ 

‘As you say, Captain,’ replied JARVIS, sounding, if anything, amused. 

‘Can you please take me to where Mr Stark is? Uh – please?’

The elevator started moving without another sound. Steve guessed that he had won over this proud, protective servant of Tony’s, something he never thought he would have to do.   
When the elevator doors opened, Steve followed JARVIS’s instructions down to what he was assured was the room that Tony was in. The fact that it was further down the corridor from all the nice, clean, modern Research And Development labs and behind a door marked ‘Mechanic’ was clearly no reason why a genius billionaire shouldn’t be behind it. The door was old, brown paint chipped and – well. It looked like no place that Steve would ever associate with the flashy, over-styled billionaire Tony Stark. 

Steve readjusted the drone under his arm and shifted the coffee cup so that he could knock loudly, three times. There was no reply, but Steve could hear the faint bass-thump of music coming from inside, so he pushed the door open a crack and stepped around it. 

Inside was nothing like he expected. The space was wide open, a free space in the centre of the long, high-ceilinged room left clear. Around the edges of the room, clusters of computer screens scrolled through or displayed information in cool blue text. The light was soft white, warm but at the same time clean, and the stainless steel work benches reflected so much light that the room seemed to glow. Despite all the futuristic technology, every work surface was covered in what Steve could only think of as “junk.” There were what looked like parts for a prosthetic arm, a high-tech cannon, several StarkTech inventions pulled apart and left seemingly randomly over multiple benches, and a series of desktop-Roombas sweeping carefully around them. Thumping heavy metal music was pushing through hidden speakers at a truly nauseating volume. In the middle of this noisy, messy, arcane space stood Tony Stark himself, surrounded by a loose cage of large empty picture frames with nothing but blue static buzzing through them. Tony was wearing a set of overalls pulled down to his waist with a dirty white vest covering his chest, streaks of dirt and oil up his bare arms. On his hands and wrists were bulky looking bracelets and in his left hand he held a thin tablet with a holographic screen. On his feet were what looked like the sort of metal boots that could be used for skiing, locking Tony’s ankles and calves into place. As Steve approached, coffee cup in hand and drone loosely tucked under one arm, Tony flicked the tablet onto a side table and murmured something that Steve couldn’t hear but that JARVIS must have heard, because with his arms clamped to his side Tony actually seemed to be hovering a few inches above the floor. The boots looked to have tiny rocket thrusters in the soles which lifted Tony up. Steve stepped closer, fascinated, as every muscle in Tony’s body strained with the effort of tension as he hovered in place. After a moment, Tony’s mouth moved again and a blue light scanned over his entire body. On one of the screens, a tiny holographic Tony Stark popped up. Tony immediately cut the thrusters to his boots and thunked down onto the landing pad. He stripped off the wristbands and gave them to a silver – robot??? – that was waiting patiently to the side. The robot immediately trundled over to a charging station and clicked them into a socket. Tony focused his hands towards the tiny hologram and made an expansive hand gesture like he was flinging something away from the centre of his chest. The hologram burst outwards to fill the space inside the circle of frames, blue lines crisscrossing over Tony’s body as the hologram settled into his curves and angles. 

‘Test successful, Jarvis. Write that down.’ As soon as Tony spoke, the music turned itself down and the hologram disappeared. Tony stepped out of his boots, making it look as easy as stepping through a doorway.

‘Yes sir,’ replied the disembodied AI, ‘also Mr Rogers is here.’

Tony’s head whipped around and his stare pinned Steve where he stood. 

‘J, you know you’re not meant to let strange men up here without a chaperone?’

That, at least, galvanized Steve into action. He unfroze his body, shook himself out and held up the drone and coffee, in self-defense or placation he didn’t know. All his brain showed him, over and over, was the image of Tony with a spark of creativity and wonder in his eyes, gazing up at him as lines of light caressed his olive skin. 

‘Uh – I drone? I mean, your drone, it broke – well uh, I broke it. Your drone. I thought it was… attacking me? So. I have your coffee. Myself. And your drone, which is… broken.’

_Good going Steve_ , he thought. 

‘You broke my drone? Jeez, Godzilla, put down the girl and step off the Empire State Building. That thing’s meant for war zones and you just smashed it? – You must have a hell of a swing.’ Tony’s gaze swam somewhere around Steve’s midsection and a light blush settled on his cheeks, before Tony noticed the steaming cup in Steve’s other hand. ‘Oooh! But you brought me coffee, so you’re forgiven. I can’t believe you came all the way up here just to bring me this, but whatever demons drive you, buddy, remind me to give ’em a payrise.’

Tony made grabby-hands at the coffee, took it, and downed it in one gulp. Steve began to untangle Tony’s words just as he began to apologise, again, for breaking the drone but Tony merely called across the room, ‘Dum-E? Clean up on aisle twelve!’

The robot which had taken the tablet zoomed over to them and, in a strangely child-like gesture, tugged at the corner of Steve’s sleeve until he handed over the drone. 

‘Uh – thank you?’ Steve said, not sure if the robot would respond to any voice that wasn’t Tony’s, but Tony beamed and the robot dipped his claw slightly before zooming away again into the furthest recesses of the room. 

‘Dum-E will be your friend for life if you let him clean up all your messes and occasionally hand him things to put away. That little guy lives to clean.’

‘Sounds like a handy guy to have around,’ replied Steve, looking over at the messes on the tabletops. 

Tony blushed a little. ‘Yeah, I’m building him an army of brothers and sisters so one day they might even clean up their own messes.’

‘You made him?’ Steve wondered, but then – he remembered back to that awful meeting years before when Tony wouldn’t stop tinkering, ‘Of course you did, you’re a mechanic.’

Tony stared at him. ‘Not many people say that about me anymore.’ His voice was guarded, quiet.

‘Oh! I’m sorry, how rude of me to reduce the genius billionaire playboy Tony Stark to a mere mechanic!’ Damn, Steve hadn’t mean to get that defensive, but something about Tony Stark just brought out that mean part of himself, the one which reminded him of back-alley fights and broken lips. 

He hoped Tony wouldn’t get angry, but it seemed that no matter what he tried to say, he had the gift of angering this man.

‘That’s not what I meant, Godzilla, and there’s nothing reductive about breaking the boundaries of technology in eleven different fields just since last week!’

Steve ground his teeth and suppressed the angry retort that stung the tip of his tongue. He owed this rude, arrogant man his job, so Steve had to set his jaw, suck it up and nod. Tony seemed to wait a moment longer than was comfortable for him to reply, but when Steve merely stood there he turned and walked away, waving his hand in a lazy dismissal.

‘Ok, well, when you tell your buddies in the bar that you’ve seen the man behind the curtain, be sure to mention my devastating good looks and charm, will ya? I’m a busy man and thanks to you and your Godzilla hands, I’ve got one more thing to fix today, so. Get outta my china shop, Ferdinand.’

The nerve of that man!

‘I’ll just go back to my coffee cart, then.’ Steve spun on his heel, the sparks of anger making his movements sparse and controlled, and strode out, slamming the door behind him. 

/////  
Tony Stark watched Steve Rogers leave the room. He’d had the strangest feeling, when they’d been almost-arguing, that they had met before. Of course, he thought, he must see Steve every day when he passed the lobby on his way out to lunch, but there was something so oddly familiar about the blond that he couldn’t quite put his finger on… He met with so many people, though, that he and Steve could have had a random drive-by encounter at any point during his life and he probably wouldn’t remember most of it. Tony bit his lip – four years sobriety was a hard-fought battle, but thinking about how much of his life was missing in the haze of drug and booze certainly didn’t want to make him go back to that. Anything but that. Steve’s line about being the “genius billionaire playboy” was one he had said himself, in an interview given too many years and too many bottles of wine ago, a quote that had been printed on his cover of Time magazine and had gone viral. It was the phrase most people associated with Tony Stark, and it still stung. He was a very different man when he’d said that, but now that his life no longer revolved around alcohol, he’d found that he’d been content to let the “playboy” part of that image go… Steve obviously hadn’t looked past that quote, though, as he was still flinging those barbs back in Tony’s face all these years later. 

Wandering over to the table in the corner where he was currently dumping all his “to-fix” projects, Tony shook his head. He placed the drone gently down on the table and gave the poor thing a quick pat. _Mechanic,_ Steve had called him. How that had taken him back! No-one, not since the original Jarvis, had talked about being a _mechanic_ about anything other than a profession that was beneath him as a Stark and forbidden to him as the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. Not even Obie had looked on his tinkering as anything other than a nuisance, and Obie was fairly tolerant of his idiosyncrasies, before he’d betrayed him and tried to kill him. Steve had seemed like he was defending mechanics, like Tony was somehow an insult to a profession that he held in high regard, and that was just unusual enough that it piqued Tony’s interest. Damn him!


	4. Chapter 4

Tony found himself with a wish to get to know Steve better, even though the man clearly didn’t like him. Why, he wondered, would a man as obviously loud and confident as Steve come to work for someone he appeared to detest? Surely he had his fill of job offers, making coffee so delicious – and Tony was big enough to admit that despite Steve’s many failings as a person and his violent tendencies towards innocent drones – that he did make coffee so tasty that Tony would be prepared to trek through deserts just to have a cup. As a man who had actually trekked through a desert after freeing himself from captivity only a few years before, he knew exactly how much sand and grit would be involved in that endeavor and he was _still_ willing to do it. 

Tony shuddered, not willing to allow his mind to go down the path of desert dust and freezing caves that was only ever a breath away, and turned his mind back to his work. As always, he had a lot to get done. 

Tony, through no fault of his own he’d like it noted, was intensely curious about nearly everything he came across. The two noticeable exceptions to that rule were vegetables and anything to do with Howard Stark. So really, he thought as he dug into the Stark Tower security tapes with a vague sense of guilt, it wasn’t _actually_ his fault that he was intrigued by one Steve Rogers, Delicious Captain – no wait – Captain of the Delicious Coffee Cart and all-around mystery, and Tony Stark could not abide mysteries. He needed to know more and the Captain was just his latest project that was all. He was just – what the hell?   
In his room in the Tower, Tony sat up in his chair as he stared at the screen in anger. Steve’s coffee cart was in a security camera blind spot! How had this been allowed to happen?   
‘JARVIS, show me the lobby.’

‘You are already looking at the lobby, sir,’ came the dry British reply. 

Tony sighed. ‘Get me a clear view of section D4.’

‘You are already looking at D4, sir. Are you well?’

‘Cut it out, J, you can’t hide this. There’s a blind spot right there in D4.’

‘Is there, sir?’

‘Don’t bullshit me J, just fix it.’

‘Running a scan now, sir. Scan complete, camera position is optimal.’

‘Excuse me? Do I have to do everything myself?’

‘I advise against moving the camera position, sir.’

‘Shows what you know. Clear me a path, buddy.’

And that was how Tony ended up padding down to the lobby of his Tower in the middle of the night dressed in his best inventing clothes and hoping like hell that Hill wasn’t working late tonight. Once in the lobby, he located the D4 camera immediately – he had designed this system, after all. The problem was evident. He had moved the camera position because otherwise it would interrupt the state-of-the-art nitrogen-cooled air conditioning system that he had invented aged nineteen and installed over the course of three feverish, sleepless nights after Howard had told him that Stark men weren’t _plumbers,_ as though that was some kind of insult. Tony had taught himself the basics of plumbing installation after that just to spite the old bastard and had installed a system that would be the envy of the industry if he’d ever bothered to share its existence beyond JARVIS and a couple of startled security guards who were sworn to secrecy. Fuck you, Howard. 

That damned system had improved cooling efficiency by 13% and was definitely not on any sort of maintenance map… and he had moved camera D4 out of the way in order to grant his masterpiece right-of-way in the ducting space. Damn it. Well, Stark men were known to be resourceful after all, so if he couldn’t move the camera he’d just have to move the coffee cart itself into a better position. It was a matter of operational security, after all. Couldn’t have the coffee cart in a blind spot for very obvious, very boring security reasons. Very dull and not at all interesting reasons related to paperwork and other such nonsense… definitely not reasons that he had to concern himself with after midnight on a Tuesday. 

How hard could it be to move a coffee cart out of the way anyway? Carts had wheels, didn’t they? He had studied graduate physics at MIT aged just thirteen, he could definitely make a coffee cart roll across a hard floor. 

Tony stepped up to the cart, assessing the angles, calculating the pivot points, then put his shoulder against a precisely-gauged panel of wood and pushed…. Nothing. Not even one measly inch. But he’d calculated the optimum point to push so perfectly! He pushed again. Nothing. Panting slightly, Tony sat down and braced his bent legs against the floor, back to the cart. He strained with every muscle in his legs, chest and back to move this demon cart and for a wild second he felt movement and opened his mouth – but it was just his bare feet slipping on the marble floor. He banged down to the ground with a surprised groan and sat, panting even heavier, trying to figure out what would work. Not for the first time that day, he felt every one of his forty-one years. The cart had to be possessed by some kind of Demon Of Immovability, that was the only option, because Tony had personally calculated the weight and heft of the cart against his own strength and he was never wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t pushing hard enough. Tony put his shoulder against the cart again, so absorbed in getting the angle exactly right because he needed this one-

‘So. What are we doing here?’

Tony jumped about a foot in the air and did not shriek, thank you very much because Stark men did not shriek, but there must have been a bird trapped in here or something because that sound was _not_ him. 

Fuck Tony’s life right now because Steve Rogers himself was standing next to Tony with his hands on his hips, one eyebrow raised and with the sort of expression that promised trouble. Tony was suddenly very aware of how his bare feet and suspiciously-stained jeans must look compared to Steve’s pristine white shirt and gray slacks. 

‘Steve! What are you doing here in the middle of the night?’

‘It’s five in the morning, I always start work at this time. What are you doing here?’

When had that happened? He’d left his watch behind somewhere in his workshop but he was almost certain that he’d only been here for ten minutes, fifteen at the absolute most. Tony straightened, determined the regain the control that was rapidly slipping away from him in this situation. 

‘I own this building. This is my lobby I can do what I want in here.’

Steve sighed. ‘You do, and you can, but this is my cart and my business, so I repeat my original question – what are you doing here?’  
In the face of Steve’s unrelenting and very annoying attachment to the truth, Tony wilted. 

‘Your cart is wrong. It’s in the wrong place, no-one’s fault but it can’t stay. It becomes my responsibility, of course, but it has to move. Three feet to the left should do it, but I hadn’t realized that this cart was demon spawn, and-‘

‘You can’t move the cart?’ Why was Steve looking at him like he was stupid? It was a legitimate dilemma!

Tony frowned in reply, and Steve, the bastard, had the audacity to roll his eyes. He took three steps around to the side of the cart and – oh. Took the brakes off the wheels. Yeah – that would do it. 

Steve, in an unneccesary but very much appreciated display of muscular goodness, obediently rolled the cart three feet to the left, ignoring Tony’s flaming red face and sputtering outrage like the good citizen he was. Wheel brakes? No-one told him there’d be wheel brakes! 

Steve, having moved the cart in the vague direction Tony had indicated, stood back, hands once again on those deliciously slim hips, and waited for Tony’s judgement. A smirk – yes, a smirk! – was firmly in place on Steve’s lips and Tony hated that smirk and wanted to bite it off his irritating, smug, gorgeous face. 

‘A little to the left,’ Tony managed to blurt out, mind caught up in the muscles and the tiredness and the smirk and the parking brake, before he turned on his heel and - well, he didn’t flee _as such_ because Stark men didn’t _flee_ , but he very quickly retreated to the safety of his own private elevator. 

Steve Rogers watched Tony Stark flounce out of the lobby, bewildered and a little hurt. No matter what he did, he never seemed to be able to say or do the right thing in front of his capricious boss. He thought he’d been helpful by releasing the brake and moving the cart, but the clear expression of embarrassment which flashed across Tony’s face when he’d turned had told him another story. Why couldn’t he say the right thing and more importantly, why did he so want to impress Tony when a few months ago he’d been ready to strangle the insufferable man? 

Steve sighed, stepped into the cart and began preparing for his day, not able to put the memory of Tony’s flushed, embarrassed face out and soft bedhead out of his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony decided that he needed to stretch his legs. He wasn’t tired, he didn’t get _tired,_ he just needed a change from the blank walls and throbbing music of his lab, that was all. Seeing Steve and smelling the delicious roasted-coffee scent that hung around the cart had nothing to do with it. That was why Tony was making his way down to the lobby of Stark Industries at 11.30am on a Friday morning when he really should have been working on his many projects which needed attention. Just a wish for a change of scenery, nothing suspicious at all. 

Walking out of the elevator into the lobby, Tony stopped dead in his tracks. Oh shit, he had forgotten that three days ago in a fit of late-night insomnia he’d ordered this insanely plush couch to be delivered to the lobby. I mean, who could blame him? It was totally unreasonable for the universe and assembled Patrons of the Coffee Cart to expect him to _stand in line_ like a peon while he waited for his coffee to be made. Never mind that his order was literally the quickest thing on the menu to make, never mind that he was usually served first anyway, it was an injustice, dammit! Or so he’d thought at 2.34am while trying to distract himself from needing a drink after one of his latest ideas turned out to be a bust. So, yeah. The couch. It was a luxury three-seater model in eye-watering red with gold cushions propped along its length – good God, had it always been that red? It had looked different on the computer screen, no doubt. More modern-color-pop and less kids-fire-truck than he was currently seeing, but who knew what colors even were anymore? Maybe he was so caffeine-deprived that he’d gone color-blind and it was actually a tasteful taupe. That could happen, right? Come to think of it, he hadn’t slept since he ordered that couch and that was almost four days ago now, so. It wasn’t his fault he could no longer see color, right? 

Tony forced his legs to move towards the Crimson Monstrosity and act like nothing happened. _That’s it, be normal, move arms move hips move head –_

‘Tony? Why are you walking like that?’

Damn Pepper.

‘Wormal?’

‘I don’t even understand what you just said which means it’s definitely time for you to take a nap.’ Pepper swung her arm around his shoulders. 

Oh shit. Abort mission! 

‘Abort mission!’

‘What misson? Tony what the hell are you talking about? You really should go to bed, I can’t even…’

‘No. Coffee first, then bed.’

‘Well, at least that sounds like you. Natalie!’ Pepper called out to her assistant, whom Tony was almost certain she was also sleeping with but was way too scared of both women to ever call her out about. Natalie was pretty attractive, Tpny had to admit, and six months ago he would definitely have made a pass at her. Strangely though, these days his spank bank consisted mainly of muscular men with big blue eyes and Tony couldn’t _for the life of him_ figure out why. 

‘Yes Miss Potts?’ Ooooooh that was An Eyebrow – proof they were definitely sleeping together. There was An Eyebrow and An Eyebrow could only mean one thing. Eyebrows don’t lie. Tony pointed his finger dramatically between the two women.

‘Eyebrows don’t lie, Pep! I have proof!’

Natalie stared at him. ‘I’ll get him some coffee.’

‘Thank you, Nat.’ Pepper sounded so relieved as she piloted Tony towards the giant red couch which was taking up more room than it should have in Tony’s field of vision. He twisted his head to see Natalie – Nat??? – talking to Steve and Steve’s head shooting up in Tony’s direction before Pepper’s hands fell heavily onto his shoulders and he was callously pushed down into the extremely soft and cozy red seats of this truly delightful couch. A mug of coffee was put down in front of him just in the right space for him to pick it up without having to touch hands with anyone else. How nice! Tony knocked back the triple espresso and sighed with happiness. He could just stay here until the effects of the caffeine kicked in before heading back to work, that would be all the exercise he needed. There should be some kind of heated blanket option though, and maybe a massage bot on hand. 

‘Unhygenic, Tony,’ murmured Pepper, which was when Tony realized that he’d been speaking out loud. Oops. 

Tony drifted for about twenty minutes, letting his eyes slip shut and the soft conversation between Nat and Pepper wash over him. In the background, he could hear the comforting sounds of the coffee cart, the hiss of the espresso machine and the ding of the cash register. Tony sleepily imagined installing JARVIS onto Steve’s machine. JARVIS could start printing the coffee dockets the moment his facial recognition scan picked up who was walking towards the cart, with a few new features to add an additional shot of espresso for every wrinkle in a person’s forehead and an extra triple if they couldn’t walk straight. Ok, the last one was just for him. Still, he thought, JARVIS could make Steve’s life a hell of a lot easier, if he could just get the installation right. Over the last few months of getting to know Steve and seeing how hard the man worked he’d seen a side of Steve that was… softer, somehow, and now the thought of making his day that little bit more efficient made Tony’s heart and stomach have funny looping feelings. Or maybe that was just the effect of a triple espresso on an empty stomach. Maybe an automated muffin dispenser? No, JARVIS first, muffins second. He’d need a good look at the cash register though, see what kind of antiquated tech he was working with. 

Tony jumped off the couch with renewed purpose, stopping only to confirm that yes, it was every bit as hideous as he remembered, before steaming over to Steve. Steve took one look at him and held up his hand, palm toward Tony. 

‘Nope, not doing it. You’re not having any more coffee today, Stark.’

Stark? Tony’s face twisted at the memory of all the people who’d ever called him that over the years, at the memory of Obie’s face too close to his own as he drove the knife into his chest… Tony shook his head. Maybe Pep was right and he did need a nap if that was the junk his brain was throwing back at him. He shook it off. Stark men were made of iron, after all. 

‘As if you could refuse me, Rogers.’

Steve folded his arms. ‘Try me.’ 

Steve leaned a little closer to Tony and stage-whispered, ‘Nat’s gonna cut my balls off if I give you more coffee.’

Tony didn’t doubt it. ‘Remind me to build a coffee bot to circumvent that issue. Wouldn’t want to endanger your balls in any way.’

A sudden burst of sardonic anger moved across Steve’s face. ‘You saying that a robot could do my job?’

‘Robot ain’t got balls, all I’m saying,’ Tony smirked. Was this flirting? Had he astral projected into another, better universe? Tony snuck a quick look back at the couch. Nope, had to be the same universe. No self-respecting alternative universe would ever contain a couch that eye-wateringly bright. 

Tony leaned over the counter of the cart, deep into Steve’s personal space. Had he begun to see auras, or could he actually see the edges of Steve’s personal space bubble crumbling in the corners of his vision? No, concentrate. Coffee. Register.

Steve smiled at him. What was he doing here again? Oh right, JARVIS. 

‘How long have you been awake for?’ Wait, what? This wasn’t flirting. Abort! 

‘One hundred and nine hours and thirty four minutes.’ Stark men did not mess up where numbers were concerned. 

‘Oh my god why did I give you caffeine?’

‘Because time isn’t real?’ Yeah maybe he could sneak that one in and Steve wouldn’t notice. 

Steve did notice. He held eye contact for three whole seconds and wow, Tony had never noticed the little bit of green in his eyes before. 

‘You still have to sleep for at least eight hours-’ Tony gasped ‘-OK six hours then – before you can have more coffee. Nat’s orders.’

‘…Nat isn’t real?’ Tony wasn’t so sure about that one. 

‘Nat’s right behind you.’ The voice rasped into his left ear. Tony jumped about a foot into the air and clutched his chest as his heart gave a terrified thump.

‘Jesus Christ, Nat! JARVIS remind me to install that personal-space alarm I’ve been thinking about.’

‘But if you did that, how would I ever be able to give you this?’ Steve’s voice was low and inviting, and in his delirious state, Tony wanted to lean into that voice and never come out. He turned towards where Steve was now also leaning towards him, arm outstretched and holding what smelled like the most perfect triple espresso he’d ever encountered. The moment seemed to stretch out forever, Steve’s sky-blue eyes with their green flashes seemed open and sincere like pools of clear water, his usually-dour face lit up with a soft smile that transformed him into some kind of golden-haired angel…

‘No!’ shouted Pepper and Nat at the same time, lunging forward to grab the cup and breaking the spell Tony was under, thankfully before he managed to do anything stupid like chase the softness from Steve’s bottom lip with his own.

‘I take it back! Gimme!’ Tony all but snatched the coffee from Steve and gulped it down, shivering a little to get the memory of that perfect moment out of his head. The coffee was rich and chocolatey with just the right hit of sweet hazelnut syrup cutting through the acidity of the espresso… this was surely what heaven tasted like. 

‘Pretty sure that couch doesn’t belong in anyone’s heaven, Tony,’ Pepper said. Had he been talking out loud again? And when had Pepper had the time to come up behind him like that? Jeez, he might actually need a nap this time. Before Steve could react, Tony turned, lunged back towards the coffee machine and shouted ‘JARVIS, register!’ before Pepper and Nat firmly grabbed his upper arms. 

‘Jesus Tony, yes you are talking out loud and yes, you do need a nap. Although after someone –’ Pepper whipped her head around to glare at Steve ‘ –gave you more coffee I doubt that’ll happen.’

Steve threw his hands in the air. ‘Alright, it’s decaf!’

Betrayal! 

‘Et tu, Steven?’ Tony gasped.

‘Yes et me, Anthony. Go on, go to bed now or I’ll set Nat on you!’ Steve’s eyes were bright, blue-green and so alive and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. In that moment, his eyes met Steve’s and something intangible passed between them. Something like understanding. 

Tony allowed himself to be led away by Pepper and Nat without even protesting, a testament to how shaken he was by those green-flecked eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Thirty hours later, Tony had his plan all worked out. He had napped, seemingly to everyone’s relief, but woke up with a start as he realized that he never got a chance to look at Steve’s cash register. Luckily for him, he was a paranoid genius with a powerful A.I. at his disposal, so he just got JARVIS to show him the security feeds from the Tower lobby and zoomed in until he was able to see not only what (hilariously outdated) register Steve was using, but also that the idiot was still writing order dockets by hand like a ninety-year-old, and that his handwriting was so bad that even he wasn’t able to read the orders sometimes. Sitting up in bed, Tony could only listen to old-fashioned ‘Bing!’ noise that the cash register made when it was opened so many times before he absolutely had to do something about it. The thing sounded like it had come from some kind of 1940s grocery store, for fucks sake! Steve was practically crying out for an upgrade, he would no doubt be so grateful for Tony installing JARVIS and maybe getting him a new StarkPad to go along with it. He could check the water pressure on the left steam wand while he was there as well, as he’d noticed that it was a little slower than the right hand one. 

Those eyes, those gorgeous green-flecked eyes urged him onwards. Perhaps if Steve liked the upgrade, he’d agree to… well. Coffee seemed a bit wrong, but… dinner? Of course he’d agree, who wouldn’t agree to dinner with Tony Stark? But perhaps he’d need some kind of incentive? Tony knew that his family name and riches were the big draw for partners, probably his looks and charm and maybe his intelligence might come into play. His skills in the bedroom were still kind of legendary even though that part of his life was over but they might still be a draw for a certain kind of person. He didn’t even want to _consider_ his personality on that list. Last time someone had liked him for that had been the original, breathing Jarvis, and that had been decades ago. 

Tony didn’t even stop to think about anything else. He threw the covers off and pulled on a thick hoodie over his pyjamas. Pulling a tablet with the specs for his new idea into the front pocket of his hoodie, he marched down to the lobby. There was no need for secrecy, after all he wasn’t doing anything illegal and this was his own building with the most excellent security system in the world. 

Tony reached the lobby and managed to remember the wheel brakes before attempting to roll the coffee cart into the elevator and down to his lab. Shit, it was really heavy! Steve had made it look so easy to move before, but now Tony had even more appreciation for the muscles adorning his arms, upper back and – shit, _thighs_. 

Humming softly to himself, Tony secured the coffee cart in his lab and got to work. 

//////  
Steve came into work early every day specifically because he liked to have some time to bring coffee to the janitor and the night security guards before the Stark daytime employees started pouring through the doors. This morning was no different, although he could have sworn that the cart had been a little further away from the elevator when he’d left last night. No matter, he thought, he must have been imagining things. 

The routine of flushing the espresso machine, checking the grind and timing the shots was so familiar and steadying to Steve, he could almost do it with his eyes shut. His hands moved almost of their own accord, tamping the shot and deftly slotting the filter group into place. His hands never missed. The first shots of the day always came out reluctant and bitter, clinging to the filter for as long as they could before dripping into the waiting glass. Steve usually prepared to wait at least ten extra seconds before the first shot of the day came out, so ingrained in the routine that the first, perfect pour startled him. This machine had _never_ come out perfect on the first shot before. Buying a second hand machine had been the only thing he could afford and he knew when he bought it that it was going to be temperamental, but…

Oh well. Machine must be having a good day. 

Steve moved onto the next shot, which was also perfect. Strange. He sniffed, then tasted the coffee – delicious! Puzzled, Steve pulled through the last shot, almost expecting this one to be a fuck-up, but – no, this shot was also perfect.

Steve frowned at the machine, but shrugged and continued setting up for the day. He certainly didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if the machine was working fine who was he to question it? 

Forty-five minutes later, the first employee walked through the doors of the lobby and make a bee-line for the coffee cart. Steve opened his mouth to greet Scott as normal, but his till seemed to have developed a mind of its own. A docket spat out of a slot that he…. hadn’t realized was there before… and floated to the floor when Steve didn’t pick it up. Both Steve and Scott stared at the docket as it fell. 

‘Morning Steve! Everything alright?’ Scott asked, sounding more than a little nervous. 

‘Uh, yeah, Scott – sorry. What can I get you?’ Steve shook himself. The till must be doing maintenance or something, he reckoned desperately to himself, strongly ignoring the fact that up until this morning the till hadn’t had any software… or been connected to any maintenance systems…

‘Triple shot caramel latte, please – you know you make the best ones around!’

Another docket slid silently out of the new printing slot. Clenching his jaw, Steve read it to himself. 

**[Order not accepted: Triple shot caramel latte. New order: single shot sugar-free latte. Reason for substitution: Signs of caffeine dependence]**

Steve boggled at the docket. To his right, the espresso machine made a gurgling noise like it was trying to come to life. 

‘Err, Steve? You ok buddy?’ Scott was looking at the ominous-sounding machine with the same trepidation Steve was. ‘You maybe wanna get out of there before Skynet starts enacting Judgement Day?’

Steve scrambled to comply, standing well back as skeletal metal arms unfolded from behind the machine, delicately selected a paper cup and placed it under the filter. Another set of arms prepared the shot. Milk steamed, espresso poured from the filter, and the machine presented the steaming paper cup to Scott after about 30 seconds with a small motorized whirring sound which Steve had the oddest idea was meant to be a flourish.  
Wordlessly, Scott took the coffee. He searched the perfect latte art for a moment, then raised his hand. 

‘Uh – thank you?’ 

Scot sipped his drink, then glared at the machine in betrayal. ‘This isn’t a caramel latte!’

‘Is it a - ’ Steve brought the docket up ‘ – single shot sugar-free latte?’ 

Scott stared for a beat. ‘Your new machine’s an asshole,’ he mumbled, but otherwise seemed surprisingly unperturbed. He took another sip. ‘Makes good coffee though,’ he concluded. 

Steve watched in astonishment as Scott and the traitorous coffee sloped off towards the elevators to being work. Steve opened his mouth to say something – what he’d say to a sentient coffee machine he had no idea – when the doors opened and another wave of employees surged through the door. The till beeped into life and Steve, with a cold dread in his stomach, dove behind the cart once more. He tried pressing buttons, disconnecting wires, anything he could to stop the espresso machine cranking out coffees which hadn’t been ordered. The dockets, those that he frantically read, got more and more sassy as they denied shots, substituted sugars for sweeteners or sugar-free syrups, and tried to get everyone to drink fat-free milk regardless of what they’d actually ordered. Within ten seconds, the first outraged customer was shouting out to Steve that he’d made their order wrong. Steve shot up from where he’d been crouching with wires in hand, tried to calm the customers but it was too late. The crowd around his machine was growing as people stopped to watch the elegant metal arms whipping through the air while Steve stood there getting redder and redder in the face, trying to placate his customers. He knew it was getting out of hand when a small fight actually broke out between two people who’d ordered very different things, both been given the same order and now were each trying to blame the other for taking their drink. Steve couldn’t spare the time to sort it out – he was trying to keep up with the new orders that came in as people wanted to try coffee made by robot. It wasn’t until someone shouted  
‘Nice machine Stark’s given you there, Steve!’ that he suddenly understood what was happening. In a flash, Steve’s temper was up. Stark had installed JARVIS on his machine without asking him! 

‘JARVIS, shut it down!’ Steve thundered. Immediately, the machine stopped. The crowd quieted somewhat, so that Steve could actually think for once. He tried to shoo them away, grumbling at them to come back later, but really, he didn’t care that much whether people stayed or left. Red anger clouded his vision as he stalked towards the elevator to give Tony Stark a piece of his mind. 

/////

Tony, of course, had been watching everything via the security cameras. The moment Steve had lost control of the machine, he’d grabbed his toolbox off the bench and headed down to the lobby in his private elevator. Damn it! He’d been so happy thinking about Steve’s life being easier with JARVIS there to help him out in the morning rush, he’d be able to double his working speed and take more money without hiring any more staff and Tony just knew that Steve would have worked it out… if it wasn’t for the fact that JARVIS was too good at reading people and had a tendency to get overprotective when he thought he could make recommendations about people’s health. Tony knew he’d been on the receiving end of his AI’s snarky encouragements to eat actual food and drink something that wasn’t coffee often enough. 

If Tony hurried, he could get down to the lobby before Steve left. He could talk his way out of anything, Stark men had tongues of silver and he was sure he could sort the whole thing out with just a few commands…  
Well that’s what Tony thought right up until the elevator doors opened and Steve’s furious face loomed over him as he stepped out into the lobby.

‘You! What did you do to my coffee machine?’ Steve demanded. 

Tony could see a vein popping in Steve’s neck and his face turning red. That square jaw was clenched tightly and all of a sudden, Tony was afraid that he couldn’t talk his way out of this. He would still try though, because he’d always had a fatal weakness for rambling when he was nervous. It was his biggest giveaway. 

‘Steve! Don’t know what you’re upset about – it seems to be working better than ever, just a few minor reprogramming tweaks and it’ll all be fixed right up-’

_’Minor reprogramming? Steve hissed, not even unclenching his jaw long enough to get words out, ‘Take it out!’_

‘First of all, JARVIS is a “he” not an “it” Steve, come on.’ 

‘I don’t care! 

Tony gasped, and Steve looked a little contrite despite his anger barreling onwards with all the smoke and heat of a steam-train. 

‘No, sorry JARVIS, I’m sorry, you’re not an “it.” But – I didn’t ask you to put JARVIS in there. Take him out. Now.’ 

No matter how furious Steve sounded, Tony couldn’t help but be a little pleased that he’d referred to JARVIS as ‘he.’ Personhood was very important, even to an AI. Tony knew the fear of dehumanization, what he’d endured in that cave in Afghanistan…  
His mind snapped back to the present. 

‘You could at least be a little grateful, Rogers. I did upgrade your system for nothing, after all.’ 

_What was he doing?_ Why was he antagonizing like this? Tony knew the sensible thing to do was just take JARVIS out, and yet… he’d been so excited for this, to give Steve this gift. Taking it back seemed like admitting defeat, and Stark men… well. He’d been defeated before so that probably didn’t apply, but still. He’d wanted to do something nice for Steve. 

‘And I repeat, Tony, that I didn’t ask you to!’ 

‘Thousands would kill for JARVIS in their system!’ 

‘Tony…’ Steve sounded almost like Pepper had when she’d finally broken things off with him. Angry, exasperated, almost defeated. Toy felt cold with fear. He couldn’t have Steve breaking things off with him. They weren’t dating or anything (not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind) but… he’d gotten used to Steve’s presence in the lobby, coffee and smiles and hideous red couches. Tony felt like Steve leaving now, when Tony had just made up his mind to trust him and give him nice things, would be devastating 

‘Steve. Rogers – whatever. Why are you so mad?’ _Damn it!_ That wasn’t what was meant to come out. 

Steve levelled Tony with a Look, hands on narrow hips, and Tony… well, Tony had never been good at cutting his losses. Once he was in, he was in. 

‘Because you, Tony, you always ruin things for me. You always do this, I think I’m going to get to have something… I never get to have this. 

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Tony demanded, suddenly confused. 

Steve’s face turned hard. ‘You wouldn’t remember. If I’d had as much to drink as you did, I sure as hell wouldn’t remember anything either.' 

Tony went cold. This was it, this was the consequences of years spent as Obie’s tipsy lapdog coming back to bite him. As Steve continued, Tony felt all the weight of the decades of his life he wasted as an alcoholic coming to rest on his shoulders. 

‘We met before. My best friend… Bucky, and I. We – started a security company and we wanted to pitch an idea to Stark Industries. Mr Stane -’ Steve’s mouth twisted ‘-convinced us to pitch for security consultants at your 30th birthday party. Told us that if we did a good job of that, he’d hire us. It would have been our big break, but you… jeez, you were so drunk. We couldn’t even get through the pitch, Buck had to... drag me outta there-’ Steve’s shoulders heaved once in what could have been a laugh or sob ‘-and we lost everything. Never got another chance as big as that one. Stane made sure that everyone knew that we’d blown that gig. I thought that this time around, you might be different. You might respect me. Hah – I can see that that was just wishful thinking.’ 

Memory hit Tony like a strike of thunder. A younger man, skinny and gawky but with the same fire in his eyes that this Steve had now – and no, not his Steve never _his_ Steve – glaring at Tony as he was held back by a taller man with dark brown hair. 

‘No, Steve, no – I do respect you. I remember you – you were tiny – I… look, JARVIS could really make things easier for you, make your business better. I wouldn’t give him to just anyone.’ 

‘You mean that you don’t think I can run my business on my own, without JARVIS there to hold my hand?’ 

‘That’s not what I said!’ How had this all gone so wrong? Guilt surged in Tony, all his fears coming to life, choking him with their thick betrayal. Tony had ruined Steve’s life once before and now, now that he thought he was better, sober, clearer, here he was doing the same thing all over again. He’d never learn, he’d never amount to anything, while he kept on repeating those mistakes. 

‘Well, that’s how it seems to me. You don’t have the power to control what I do with my business any more, Tony. You’re not my boss, I’m a contractor. You don’t have that power over me anymore.’ 

‘What are you going to do about it?’ The words came out a little more breathy than Tony wanted, all his puffed-up anger draining as he thought about not seeing Steve’s face every morning. Tony knew he was bad tempered, quick to anger and capable of holding grudges for far longer than any other person he’d ever met except his own father, and Steve was right to want nothing to do with him. 

‘I…’ Steve looked just as devastated as Tony felt. ‘I… don’t think I can stay here. I can’t… can’t deal with this, with…’ 

‘With me, you mean?’ 

Steve’s gaze softened for a moment, then his eyes sparked as he looked down at Tony. When he next spoke, his voice was quiet and hard and final. 

‘With you. I can’t deal with you.' 

Tony shook his head slightly, willing himself not to cry. Steve was hardly the first person to ever decide that Tony was too much for them and he probably wouldn’t be the last, so why did this sting so much more than the others? 

Tony forced himself to look back at Steve, and almost immediately wished he hadn’t. Steve’s face was crumbling, no longer hard, looking like he would take everything back if he could. For one eternal moment, Steve opened his mouth and looked to be on the edge of an apology, Tony tensed with waiting for it, longing for Steve to take it back, for himself to open his own damn mouth and say something, anything, to make Steve take it back and go back to being the dependent, trustworthy man he’d come to rely on for more than just his coffee. _Anything, Steve, say anything_

The moment passed. Steve said nothing. Tony set his jaw, straightened his shoulders and looked Steve right in the eye. He was Tony Fucking Stark, and no-one talked to him like that in his own building. 

‘Resignation accepted. You have one hour to vacate the premises.’ 

Steve shut his mouth and cut his eyes away, glaring down at the floor like the tiles were responsible for this mess. He gave a single, final nod but said nothing. 

Eyes watering, Tony turned away and walked out of the lobby without ever looking back. 


	7. Chapter 7

Steve kicked open the door to his shitty apartment, holding the box full of his belongings that he’d wanted to bring back with him. There wasn’t much, most of what he had was still in the coffee cart, but he’d wanted to bring a few photos, his potted plant. His apartment seemed much too quiet, as unused as he was to seeing it at this time of day. It was barely mid-morning. How had things gone so wrong?   
Steve barely checked to see where he dumped his box of belongings before wandering into the bedroom and face-planting into the bed. How had things gone so wrong? He’d thought, he’d genuinely thought that Tony had changed, that maybe his first impression had been wrong and he was no longer the spoiled rich alcoholic who had no idea of the power he wielded over other people’s careers. Steve sighed into his mattress. He’d thought Tony had changed, but he’d been so wrong, this morning had taught him that. Groaning, Steve rolled over so that he was facing the dirty ceiling. He wished that Tony understood everything without Steve ever having to open his mouth. Emotions were hard. With Bucky gone, he’d been so lost. He’d been so sure that this new job, steady income and interesting coworkers and a beautiful, complex man whose eyes lit up every time he saw the coffee cart, would be the thing which changed his life for the better. His life had changed, alright, but not for the better. 

Steve tried to make himself replay everything in his head, focusing in on the moments he could have changed something, said something differently, made a different choice. His own words echoed in his head. _You always ruin things for me_. Fuck, why had he said that? He sounded accusatory even to himself, now that the edge had been taken off his anger and he could think a little more clearly. The fear and betrayal on Tony’s face had been hard to look at, but – it had been him who had been hurt. Steve thought back through the conversation for anything which Tony had to be afraid of. 

_If I’d had as much to drink as you did…_ Fuck, that was it. Tony’s struggles with alcohol were well-publicized, seized upon gleefully by the press and still, all these years later it seemed, a sure-fire way to hurt the man. 

Steve threw a hand over his eyes – why had he brought that up? He knew Tony was trying to be a better person, hell, the man probably couldn’t fit any alcohol _in_ him with the amount of space that coffee was taking up these days. Who _the hell_ needed three triple espressos every morning to function? It wasn’t even like Tony seemed to be in a hurry most mornings, sipping his coffee slowly while sitting on that hideous red couch and idly watching the world go by and happily talking at Steve himself whenever he thought he was in earshot, and a lot of the time when he wasn’t. The man must be lonely, Steve thought, if interactions with his barista were a prime opportunity for social contact.

Fuck. Steve sat up in his bed, hands flying to clutch at his hair. Tony was lonely and Steve had been one of the only people he’d ever seen Tony talk to who wasn’t an employee or business partner. Come to think of it, Tony worked such long hours that he didn’t seem to have friends either. God knew that Steve had seen him first thing in the morning often enough, waiting impatiently for Steve to open the cart before bombarding him with tales of his nights’ inventions. Tony’s loneliness shone through every interaction, now that he came to think about it, and he’d just taken away the opportunity for Tony to socialize. 

_He’ll just throw money at another barista soon enough_ thought the fiery, uncharitable part of Steve’s brain which was always ready for a fight. _It won’t be me, though_ thought the rest of him. Melancholy ripped through him as he flopped back into his bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering how he’d judged Tony so harshly in the first place.   
/////  
Tony didn’t head back to the lab after leaving the lobby. He went straight up to the penthouse apartment he hardly used and to the bedroom he hardly slept in. These rooms were just so _empty._

Tony could hear the sounds of JARVIS running a bath and suppressed a smile at how well his AI knew his self-care protocols these days. Right now though he didn’t feel like he could justify self-care no matter how much he wanted to sink into the bath and let his worry soak away. He stared into the bathroom mirror while the tub filled behind him, searching his face for anything which would give an outward sign of how much of a shit he’d been to Steve. He deserved to feel bad about how he’d treated Steve today, how he’d insisted that Steve be grateful for something he didn’t ever want, how he’d demanded that Steve explain himself, never expecting what he would hear. Tony sighed to himself, turning his head to watch the steam rise from the bathwater. He supposed it was inevitable that Steve would leave him in the end… everyone always did. 

Tony turned on his heel and walked out of the bathroom, leaving the steaming tub behind him. In his vast bedroom, he wrapped his arms around himself in what passed for a hug these days. He barely heard JARVIS reminding him that he had a Stark Industries function in a few hours that he had to attend on pain of Pepper. He barely registered the nice suit laid out for him on the bed. Tony grabbed a hoodie and headed down to his workshop. He might have driven Steve away but he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up on the idea of the AI-coffee cart. Maybe if he got it good enough, he wouldn’t have to hire another beautiful, stubborn, frustrating barista and end up alone again. 

/////  
Steve couldn’t put his finger on what woke him. The bright white glare of the streetlight right outside his window was dulled by the thick curtains in his bedroom and there was no sound from within the apartment or outside. Even the hum of the water pipes in his old building was muted, and somehow the silence seemed deliberately muffled. Steve sighed and rolled over onto his side, facing the alarm clock. Its neon digits spitefully displayed the time as 1:43 am. He was restless, awake, nervous energy bubbling away inside him. His legs both twitched at the same time, once, twice, loudly and rudely making the bed springs creak into the silent room. That did it. Steve threw off the covers and rolled out of bed, landing on the balls of his feet. He had to move, he had to do something. Steve pulled on his running gear, tucked his keys into his pocket and headed out. He wasn’t stupid – he left his phone and cards safely at home, resigning himself to running without music but aware of the risks of shutting himself off like that. Besides, he wanted to breathe the city, become the city. If neither he nor New York could sleep, then Steve wanted to experience as much life and sound as he could. Pulling on a light sweater against the nights chill, Steve headed out. His feet pounded along his usual route without much input from his brain, taking him through familiar streets made surreal by the darkness. Steve rarely ran at this time of night, but he found that his thoughts were quick and decisive rather than sleepy and muddled as he kept going. In fact, Steve couldn’t stop thinking about Tony Stark. He’d been doing that a lot recently, thinking about Tony. The man was infuriating, sure, and the incident with JARVIS in Steve’s cart had gotten under his skin more than he’d like to admit. Steve thought back to the way he behaved, yelling in Tony’s face, and the way that Tony had stared at him in the last moment before backing down. It was the stare of a man with a lot to lose, vulnerable but steely, daring Steve to hate him. 

Shaking his head to clear out the memory of Tony’s hurt expression, Steve quickened his steps. Before he knew it, he was crossing the street into a large, open park near to Stark Tower. Steve shivered and slowed. The open space made him feel somehow vulnerable, so he stopped and took a good look at the open grassy area before starting to run again once he made sure that he couldn’t see anyone. As soon as he rounded a copse of trees, he realized that he wasn’t alone at all. Making its way straight across the wide-open center of the park with no apparent light or regard for safety was a shape – a man, he thought. Was this man drunk? Steve could see the flash of a light-colored shirt and what looked to be a dark suit, but nothing more at this distance. The man was meandering through the park, not caring that he was off the path, with his hands in his pockets and his head hanging down. Steve kept his eyes on the ground right in front of him, but realized that the path he was running would lead him straight past the drunk man. As he got closer, Steve could make out a few more details. The moonlight reflected off a pair of shoes that had obviously been newly-shined a few hours before, but walking through the muddy park had obviously dulled them and now they looked sodden and stained. The bottom hem of the man’s pants were likewise stained and flapped wetly about his ankles. There was a heavy dew on the grass, which Steve thought was probably responsible for the wetness – either that or this drunk stranger had randomly decided to go wading in the duck pond. By now, Steve was so close that he could start to make out details of the dark hair. It stuck up wildly at all angles as though the man had been scrubbing his hands through them, but looked to have once been styled, and was the same chocolate brown as the sculpted facial hair that ran along the man’s chin. Steve’s head snapped up in recognition of the only man he knew with facial hair that framed a strong jaw and soft mouth like that…

‘Tony?’

The man stopped walking, his hands coming out of his pockets in a surprised gesture, placating and defensive and so unlike Tony’s usual bluster that it stopped Steve right in his tracks just a few feet in front of the other man. Tony seemed to pull himself together after a long, silent moment. He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up even more. It was Tony, sure enough, looking confused and scared and if Steve didn’t know better he’d say that Tony had had a few stiff drinks tonight. His bowtie was hanging loose and the hem of his white dress shirt had come untucked, but as he stood there, Steve couldn’t help but think how very small and human Tony looked right now. 

‘Steve?’ Tony asked, peering closely at him out of the clingy darkness of the city park. 

‘Yeah. It’s me. I was – I’m just – taking a jog.’

‘Can’t fool me, you were probably racing cars along the freeway weren’t you?’ Tony replied, with only a trace of his usual charm and smile. Tony’s eyes, the eyes that Steve could hardly meet these days and yet somehow could always picture in perfect detail, looked as though they had seen hell, no trace of warmth within. It was that, more than the feeble attempt at levity, which convinced Steve that something was really wrong.   
Steve stared at Tony, unable to will the right words out of his mouth. He wanted to ask _are you ok?_ and and _how can I make it better_. He wanted to say and and Instead, as always, Tony opened his mouth first.

‘Tell you the truth, Rogers, I’m beat tonight. Long… night. Long day. So can we just – cut the crap, right? Just tell me the way outta this park and I’ll be outta your hair.’

Wait – what? 

‘You don’t have JARVIS on you?’

Tony looked down at the ground before he replied softly, ‘I had to leave, and I – I left my phone behind. At the… yeah.’

Steve exhaled. He had never known Tony to go out without his phone attached to his body in some way. This man was seriously Not OK right now, and Steve couldn’t really think of what to say. The only thing he knew for sure was that Tony needed help right now. 

‘I’ve got a sofa, if you. Not that you – just. If you’re lost, you can. Use my phone, at my place.’

‘A landline?’ Steve had to smile the affronted nose-wrinkle that accompanied Tony’s reply. He couldn’t be feeling all that bad if he was still able to be an asshole – could he? 

‘Not a landline, asshole, my mobile. I left it at home when I came out tonight, I’m not actually a hundred years old despite what you think.’

‘No, I – I didn’t mean to be an asshole, I just –’ Tony floundered, and Steve’s world was turned upside down because Tony never apologized for being blunt, because that was just who he was, and that was why Steve admired him so much under all the snark and the open wounds.

Tony trailed off into silence, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his suit pants. Again, Steve’s eyes were drawn to the ragged hems and filthy shoes of what should have been a beautiful, spotless suit. Those pants alone spoke to the state of Tony’s mind, let alone the awkward silences and confused eyes. Steve jerked his head back over his shoulder and gave Tony a small smile, which was gratefully returned as Tony took a few steps towards him. Steve watched in surprise as Tony suddenly stumbled, seemingly unaware of the movement of his own feet. Again, Steve wondered if he had fallen off the wagon at some fancy party, had a few drinks as he rubbed shoulders with all the other rich, touchy billionaires who couldn’t hold a candle to his brilliance and warmth. 

Steve reached out and gently, so gently, placed one arm around Tony’s shoulders to steady him. Tony sucked in a long breath but didn’t say anything and to be honest with himself, Steve missed the innuendo and flirtatious undertones that always underpinned Tony’s personality, a thought which was just as confusing to Steve as the sudden protectiveness that surged within him. Tucking Tony under his arm, Steve headed for home. 

Once they made it back to Steve’s apartment, Tony was shivering and stumbling even more. The walk back had been mostly silent, which only meant that Steve could hear how heavy Tony’s breathing had gotten. Through the front door, the first thing that Steve did was to boil water, thinking that a cup of hot tea would do wonders. He deposited Tony on his threadbare sofa, banishing the embarrassment of having such a sparse apartment as soon as those thoughts crept in. The most important thing now was to take care of Tony. Steve clung to that thought and stubbornly refused to let anything else into his brain because if he stopped to really think about it, all the emotion of the day and the restless night would come flooding back and he wasn’t sure how he could cope. 

Steve hurried back to Tony’s side, grabbing a blanket from the couch as he passed. Despite the warmth of the apartment, Tony was still shivering. He was making an ugly gasping sound, although from the way he tried to silence himself when he saw Steve approaching, it seemed as though Tony wasn’t prepared to let himself be comforted and taken care of yet despite how Steve’s heart ached to see him so vulnerable. Tony’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears and that only unsettled things further; without examining what he was doing too closely, Steve reached out and pulled Tony towards him. Chest to chest, Steve could feel the unsteady fluttering of Tony’s chest as he tried to breathe through his tears. All Steve could do was hold him close and wrap him up in the blanket until he stopped hyperventilating. There was one moment where Tony softened against him, one moment where Tony’s body seemed to fit easily into the spaces where his own was so inadequate and Steve felt like he could stay here for the rest of his life in the dim early-morning gloom with the sound of the rain on his windows and Tony snuggled up against him. The moment passed, however, nearly giving Steve whiplash by how suddenly Tony’s body pulled whip-taut and pushed away from him until there were no points of physical contact. 

‘Well, Rogers, this has been real. It’s after midnight though and if I don’t leave now you might turn into a pumpkin and think how embarrassing that would be for both of us, so if you _don’t_ mind…’ Tony trailed off and Steve’s awkward heart turned over and sank a few inches in his chest as though it were drowning. 

‘Tony, you can’t leave in your state. You’re shivering, you need to rest.’

‘Funny thing about rest, Rogers, is that it can only be enjoyed by the weak and the dead. And I, as I’m sure even you must appreciate, am neither of those even if I might feel like it sometimes – ’ Tony tried to stand up, wobbled, and sat back down heavily. Steve tried to reach for him again, anything to keep him here, but Tony batted away his hand with a surprisingly accurate motion for someone so slurry. Tony’s head fell forwards between his legs, and only Steve’s frantic hands on Tony’s arms kept him from pitching forward off the couch altogether. 

‘Ok, you are really not doing so good. You are definitely not travelling in your condition. Fuck, have you had anything to drink?’

Tony’s head shot up so fast Steve could see that it was giving him a headrush, but his jaw was set and his eyes flashed fire. 

‘I do not drink! Not anymore.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve felt about an inch tall. He _did_ know that Tony didn’t drink. He was starting to think that both his first and second impressions of Tony had been wrong. ‘I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry. That was mean of me.’

‘You might… people still think that I… that I drink. That’s what happened tonight.’

Steve felt ice creeping around his chest. He was starting to unravel what had happened to make Tony so upset. 

‘You can tell me. Fuck, I might be the last person you want to talk to right now, but you can. Talk to me, I mean. I’ll listen.’

‘It’s OK Steve. Don’t hurt yourself, buddy. I don’t mind talking to you. I just – some people never let you forget your mistakes, you know? Never let you move on, never give you the chance to be a better person no matter how much you try.’

Shit. Steve had really fucked up here. 

‘I was one of those people today, wasn’t I?’

Tony turned to look at him, eyes wary. ‘Not everything is about you. I had a – thing. A Stark Industries thing I had to attend otherwise Pepper, you know, would have my balls in a vice. But the people there – people I used to drink with back in the day and haven’t seen in years. God knows how they got an invite, I must put Happy on the door next time because Clint doesn’t know his ass from a door handle… anyway, not the point. All those people, and all they ever saw was the worst in me and they kept coming back because they wanted something from me. They saw me at my lowest and did nothing. Not like you. You found me and brought me back… here.’ Tony looked around the apartment and all of Steve’s shame came flooding back. 

‘Tony. I did judge you today. I did let my first impression of you from all those years ago cloud my judgement. I did remind you of things I’m sure you’d rather forget. I’m so sorry.’

‘You’re not listening to me, you never listen to me! You found me. Brought me back here, gave me this… questionable tea. All I can say is that I’m glad your job doesn’t involve making tea all day.’ Tony tried for a weak smile but the echo of their earlier argument rolled too close to the surface for a moment. 

_Resignation accepted_. 

Confused, Steve frowned. He didn’t know what bringing Tony back to his shitty apartment had to do with anything. ‘You should stay here for tonight,’ he ventured, not knowing how Tony would take the suggestion. 

Tony lowered his eyes and turned the tea mug around on the table in front of him. ‘I’m sorry I ruined your life,’ he whispered. 

‘You didn’t ruin anything,’ Steve replied, ‘I’ve been told that I can be a little dramatic at times. You should stay here, on the couch. Don’t go back to your apartment, I know you don’t have anyone there to take care of you. And no, JARVIS doesn’t count,’ Steve interrupted when Tony opened his mouth to protest. 

Steve rose without any further comment, leaving Tony on the couch. He piled all the spare blankets and pillows he could find onto the couch around Tony, not allowing any argument until he had almost turned the smaller man into a burrito. Tony’s eyes peeked out of the top of a cotton-candy pile of blankets, soft and warm and chestnut brown. Steve was struck with a tightness in his chest all of a sudden, so like the asthma he’d had as a child that he almost wanted to reach for his inhaler. Tony was there in his home, on his couch looking soft and sleepy and warm. It was almost too much to bear in a way that Steve didn’t want to unpack this late at night. With a muttered ‘Goodnight’ Steve switched off the light and hastily returned to his own bed. The sheets were still cut with light from the outside streetlight, but now the whole room seemed friendlier somehow. 

Steve climbed into his bed and was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. 

 

Tony rested his head on one of the ridiculous number of pillows Steve had provided him with, his head buzzing with data but no way to interpret it all. Steve apologized. Steve said he didn’t ruin his life. Steve found him out in the dark and brought him back to him home despite how awful Tony had been to him earlier in the day, despite how he’d caused Steve to lose his job. That had to mean something, he was sure, and despite how mush he wanted to be cold and logical, his heart knew what it wanted everything to mean. Tony fell asleep warmed from the inside out.


	8. Chapter 8

Steve woke up in the morning with a sense of tension in the line of his back. He couldn’t say what exactly was making him tense but for a long moment he lay there, trying to remember why he wasn’t up before dawn to get the coffee cart started.  
He sat up. Fuck! The cart. Tony!

Steve threw off the covers and slammed through the door intent on checking up on Tony, only to be brought up short at the sight of Tony sitting on his kitchen counter still in his suit jacket from last night with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Steve’s own toolkit was open next to him and he had the toaster in his lap. There were aged crumbs spattering his designer suit pants and grease stains on his shirt as he worked a spanner in between the panels and started to dismantle the spring loading mechanism. Steve froze, but the sudden lack of movement made Tony take notice and also freeze. 

‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you its rude to stare?’ There was no bite to Tony’s words but Steve still ducked his head, feeling too _seen_ to do anything else. What else was there to say? 

‘Steve?’ Tony’s voice was a little trembly. ‘I – thank you. For last night. You didn’t have to bring me here but I’m glad that you did. I wasn’t ready to be alone.’

‘Tony, I didn’t really –’

‘Don’t stamp on my moment, Steven, its taken me years of therapy to be able to admit that!’ Tony’s teasing smile betrayed him and Steve couldn’t help but smile back. ‘Let me say this. I am not the man I used to be. I used to be sloppy, out of control. It took me being betrayed by my business partner and held captive for three months for me to see how bad things were. That was a hell of a way to sober up, I’ll tell you that. I haven’t touched a drop of booze since then, even though I miss it every day. I’ve been trying, you know, trying to get my life back on track. I got my company back, got my sobriety back. Funny thing though, when I was a drunk mess I had no shortage of people throwing themselves at me. Now that I’m boring and sober I can’t keep a partner longer than the time it takes to introduce them to JARVIS.’

Steve thought back the first time he’d seen Tony in his lab and how stunningly beautiful he’d been. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking at Tony without being stunned. 

‘Those people don’t deserve JARVIS,’ Steve replied quietly. 

Tony huffed a dry laugh. He hopped off the counter, fiddling with the screwdriver for a moment before placing it gently back on top of the toaster. 

‘Thing is, I stopped introducing people to JARVIS a few years ago.’

That didn’t make any sense. ‘But – you introduce me to –’ Steve trailed off, feeling like he’d been hit with a thunderbolt. 

‘Yeah.’ Tony wasn’t making eye contact. Steve inhaled a deep breath. Between one breath and the next it seemed like everything was changing. What did it mean that Tony had introduced him to JARVIS? Surely it couldn’t mean what he thought it meant, what he was starting to acknowledge that he wanted it to mean, because there was no way Tony Stark would ever give some idiot like him a chance. Not after how he’d treated the other man. No way.  
//////  
For someone with a brain as fine as Steve’s, he sure could be dense. Tony was hoping against hope that he was being understood, but it seemed like Steve was trying to let him down gently. He didn’t know how to make him understand what it meant that he had introduced JARVIS, that he had been allowed down into the lab by the protective AI and that even while being so angry that the veins in his forehead popped, Steve was still willing to apologize to JARVIS in the middle of an argument. 

‘I promise Tony, I’ll never let my bad judgement get the better of me again, I mean it.’ How could Steve be so self-sacrificing and at the same time so dense? 

‘And I’ll try not to install artificial intelligence into your systems without asking you.’

‘You’ll try?’ Steve smiled and it was beautiful.

‘No promises,’ Tony quipped. Steve finally made eye contact, and it was like coming through the front door after walking in the rain and being greeted by your oldest friend holding a warm blanket and a mug of hot chocolate. Tony should know, God knew he’d given Jarvis enough scares while he was alive. 

Steve broke eye contact after a long moment, biting his pink bottom lip and looking away. 

‘Tony, there’s something I –’

Tony surged forward and kissed him.  
//////  
Steve wasn’t sure what was more terrifying – the thought of losing Tony or the knowledge of how his lips felt again Steve’s own. He was drowning, no – he was floating, crushing soft lips against his and trying to conceal his eagerness. There was nothing in the world that could compare to that feeling. 

Tony pulled away – oh God had this been a mistake? Had Tony not meant to kiss him? 

‘What – did you do that for?’ When had Steve become out of breath? He wasn’t prepared for Tony to lean back away from him, face suddenly shuttered. 

‘Didn’t realize it was so traumatizing for you. Won’t happen again.’

No, that – wasn’t what he meant.

‘I didn’t mean that – I meant why’d you stop kissing me?’

Tony made a soft noise in the back of his throat and suddenly shifted so that he could wrap his arms around Steve’s broad shoulders. ‘I thought you – you’d come to your senses.’

‘I want you so much, Tony,’ Steve whispered, scared that this was all a dream. ‘Just let me have this.’ Steve buried his face in Tony’s shoulder. He smelled of couch and sleep and warmth and _Tony,_ something innately comforting. 

‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve got nowhere to be today.’

Oh yeah, that was right. He’d quit his job yesterday. Somehow, with Tony’s kisses still fresh on his lips, it didn’t seem to matter that much. Tony seemed to be aware of the awkwardness of his comment because he flushed and ducked his head a little. 

‘I mean, you can come back to work whenever you like, that’s always open to you and I said no JARVIS this time but, and I want you to know this is regardless of whether you take back the job at SI, because lets face it who wants to date their boss, like I think I did it when I dated Pepp, or when she dated me or same diff anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so - have brunch with me? Today?’

Steve wasn’t sure that his voice would work. ‘Yeah, Brunch. Today. Alright.’

‘I mean you don’t have to! Wouldn’t want to – uh – harass you.’

‘You’re not harassing me!’

‘Oh! Good, because I thought – never mind. Maybe you could let me go home and take a shower, I think we’d both be grateful for that, not to mention the good citizens of Brooklyn, but then – brunch it is?’ 

/////  
Two hours later, Steve and Tony were sitting in a booth in a quiet cafe in Brooklyn. Tony had insisted that they stay close to Steve's own apartment so that they not be recognized, "although you gotta know you're the best eye candy, Steve, and I'm proud to show the press that I can get a man like you," but so that they could have some peace to get to know each other. 

Looking into Tony's eyes as he laughed at one of Steve's completely unfunny dad-jokes like it was the best joke in the universe, Steve could feel something shifting inside him. The old hurt and resentment had lifted, taking with it all those bad impressions and misunderstandings. He felt like he could finally breathe and enjoy what was to come with this amazing man by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! If you've enjoyed the words or the art (especially the art) please leave us comments, you should also head on over to the artists page and leave a lovely comment there as well! Thanks for reading!


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